The USC graduates departed on the pitch during the start of the start in 2025 at the Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum on May 15th. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
When Rui Ming Yu first applied for colleges five years ago, he is considering studying history, art or design. But when the resident of the hundreds enrolled in the UC Davis, he changed his mind – and chose biology, a common major one. Medical jobs pay well, he thinks.
But in the first year, after thinking about the lack of interest in certain necessary courses, such as chemistry and the time and money that he will have to invest in years of school to become a doctor, he changed his focus again.
“It was about finding something in college that I would be glad to study and look to make a good salary after graduation,” said Yu, who ended Saturday with a specialty machine engineering and a minor in electrical engineering and did work at a San Francisco medical device.
“My parents sacrificed for me to come to America and for me to have this opportunity, so I have to make the right decisions for my future,” said Yu, who is the son of Chinese immigrants and the first in his family to visit a college.
As the new graduates enter the labor market and the new generation of students behind them are preparing to start their trips to the college, studies show that the prospects for employment and wages weighed over high costs of higher education increase concerns.
Not every study of the field is created the same when it comes to pay.
Using data from the US census, the New York Federal Reserve Bank has released a report this year, calculating early and average salaries for Major college graduates.
Eight of the 10 specialties with the highest average income from an early career were in engineering. The other two were physics and computer science, which was the one with the highest salary in an early career of $ 80,000.
Midcareer’s salaries followed some of the same models, but two other specialties also jumped into the top 10: finance and economics. Considering the top 15 specialties in Midcareer’s salaries, mathematics and international issues, they also made the abbreviation along with the management of information systems.
The lowest major right from school: foreign languages of $ 40,000, with educational degrees not far back. Half of the 10 worst paid specialties in the middle of their careers were focused on education, reflecting the low pay of teaching jobs in the United States
The analysis counted the “early career” as graduates of 22 to 27 years and “Middle College”, as these 35 to 45.
Data on the University of California, where he visited Yu, are more promising.
About 60,000 students graduate each year in campuses and more than two -thirds of them end without debt. Among 70% of the graduates who remain in California, the average profit within two years are higher than the general national data.
In computer science, the average income is $ 101,600. The engineering is $ 84,000, compared to $ 70,000 to $ 80,000 on a national scale for various types of engineering degrees. To be sure, costs of life and salaries are generally usually higher in the country.
“More and more students are considering the value of post -commercial education,” says Michael Itkovitz, founder and president of Hea Group, a consulting company focused on the value of the college that conducts research on how quickly students are able to recover their educational costs.
Read more: As for the erection of the livelihood, the CSU degree is the peaks in California, says the study
An October-based Future Foundation and HEA Group report found that “College Investment Return” is also the highest in computer science, engineering and healthcare. Nursing is also highly ranked high, with two -year community graduates making more than $ 100,000 in five years.
The study examined 260,000 graduates who received federal financial assistance and were enrolled in 2695 bachelor’s certificates, associated and bachelor’s programs at 324 colleges in California.
“We have seen an exponential growth in college education and fees for the last two decades, which made people think whether it is worth it after secondary education,” Itzkovitz said. “In the end, they need a strong profit to ensure that it pays off.”
Through scholarships and financial assistance, Yu ends without debt, although he agrees with the mood.
“For me, the opportunity to find a job was a big deal,” Yu said, who said it was rejected or not heard from several jobs after he started applying in January. “Even with the right basic and internships, it’s not easy.”
On a national scale, the unemployment rate for recent graduates is 5.8%, compared to the total percentage of 4.2%, an unusually large difference. The degree of the last graduates is the highest since 2021.
“Starting in the workforce is already scary and layering economic instability can easily lead to a sense of stress and discouraging,” says Courtney AUV, a financial defender of credit karma consumers. The group recently released the results of a study conducted by Harris’s poll, which found that one fifth of Gen Z members worried about finding a job after graduation, while a quarter said they were losing hope after seemingly endless applications and interviews.
Peter Leonido, who ends this month from UC San Diego with a dual specialty in sociology and educational sciences and a minor in public service, said that he was involved in the concerns of students about the entry into a difficult low -cost labor market.
“My peers all the time feel this impotence that you are going to college and getting a degree does not mean that you will get a job,” said Leonido, who grew up in the Westlake area. “There is a lot of resentment to the saying that getting an education will guarantee you work outside of college, which we know is very doubtful.”
His specialties are among the most payments for early and medium -sized specialists with colleges. But that doesn’t deter him.
“College education is important despite the dialogue for its value,” says Leonido, who has been admitted to a two -year Master’s Program in UCLA, where he will win his teaching proxy while working in the University of Los Angeles.
“College education teaches you to think critically. Education should be portable, but without this ability to think critically that you lack part of why it is so important,” said Leonido, who plans to teach English and ethnic research. “And this puts you on different groups of people and different perspectives outside your balloon.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
